In the wake of Hugh Freeze deciding to become the new head coach at Liberty University, there are two new names that have surfaced in Tennessee's search for a new offensive coordinator: Kendal Briles at Houston and Mike Yurcich at Oklahoma State.
Kendal Briles from Houston is a scary choice. After the backlash by Tennessee fans that made the administration quickly backtrack on hiring Greg Schiano, because of his ties to Penn State, what makes Tennessee think that the same thing wouldn't happen again if they hired Briles?
There was a lawsuit filed in January 2017 against Baylor University by a female Baylor graduate. In the lawsuit it is claimed that there was a culture of sexual violence inside the football program and former head coach Art Briles (Kendal's father) implimented an activity called "show 'em a good time," which included taking underage high school recruits to strip clubs and arranging for escorts to have sex with top prospects. The lawsuit also claims Kendal Briles told a Dallas prospect. "Do you like white women? Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they love football players."
Tennessee is two years removed from settling a Title IX lawsuit that claimed the university maintained a "hostile sexual environment." Why would Phillip Fulmer and Jeremy Pruitt want to bring in a guy like Briles, who has ties to not only a major scandal, but a major sexual assault scandal?
Like Freeze, I would steer clear of Briles. I don't care what kind of numbers his offense has put up at Baylor, Florida Atlantic and Houston. His off the field track record makes me want Tennessee to stay away from him.
Mike Yurcich from Oklahoma State interests me. Everyone has said that Pruitt wants to run a pro-style offense. As an old-school football fan I agree. I have never been a fan of these gimmick offenses like the spread or up tempo. The pro-style offense has withstood the test of time and is very successful (just look at Alabama). The Big 12 Conference has a reputation of the air raid style offense and slinging the ball all over the field. While this is true with some schools, if you look at the numbers of Oklahoma State this year, that actually isn't the case. Oklahoma State threw the ball 448 times and averaged 307 yards passing per game. They ran the ball 483 times and averaged 192 yards rushing per game. So they actually ran the ball more times than they passed it.
Yurcich is a viable candidate to be Tennessee's next OC. He has experience running an offense at a Power 5 school. He is fairly innovative offensively and built Oklahoma State into one of the top offenses in the nation.
Mike Gundy told reporters last year about Yurcich: "I brought him here to hide him for a few years, don't know that I'll be able to hide him much longer." Well Coach Gundy, you weren't able to hide him much longer, it looks like Tennessee has found him and may take him away from you.
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